


You’re A Ghost, Love

by Krasimer



Series: The Horror Of Our Love [5]
Category: Fright Night (2011)
Genre: Hallucinations, Insanity, Jerry is a nightmare, M/M, Peter Needs a Hug, Peter might be going crazy, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reality Bending, Vampires, but he might also not be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 18:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20822108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: He was determined to clear out the dust and the damages to his parents’ estate, however, so he was going to stay where he was. He’d watched a child die and his fear had kept him from comforting him. Charley’s best friend, sixteen and afraid, had died as something he couldn’t understand. He had become something and at the moment of his death, he would have remembered himself entirely. Vampires always did. Watching the fight on his monitors had stripped his fear out of him. Going into Jerry’s den with Charley had buried it so far down that it wouldn’t – couldn’t – resurface.His little brother had been on the line, threatened and angry all at once.





	You’re A Ghost, Love

He didn’t stop seeing the doppelganger.

After running into him once, Peter could have sworn he kept finding him. At a shop down the main street of the town, once when he’d taken a train somewhere, just on a platform as they passed. There was no possible way he was actually seeing the man so many places, it wasn’t possible because Jerry was dead.

The vampire was _gone._

He had managed to snap a photo of the train platform run-in, sent it to Charley and Amy as proof. The two of them had been somewhat horrified, volleying questions so quickly that he’d been forced to ask them to stop for a moment so he could answer one or the other without fifteen notifications at once. Charley had actually called him, after that, sounding out of breath until he’d suddenly been joined by Amy’s voice. She’d been on her way the moment Peter had sent the photo, apparently, both of them worried about him.

About the possibility of the nightmare coming back.

Mostly, he just felt insane – if he was seeing Jerry everywhere, was it just an innocent man and some PTSD?

The fact that he was actually there was troubling. Peter had taken a photo of him, had seen him several times, could prove he was there. There was more than just smoke escaping from his hands when he tried to catch it, there was actually a physical presence behind the appearances at times. He just wasn’t sure if this was madness setting in.

He was determined to clear out the dust and the damages to his parents’ estate, however, so he was going to stay where he was. He’d watched a child die and his fear had kept him from comforting him. Charley’s best friend, sixteen and afraid, had died as something he couldn’t understand. He had become something and at the moment of his death, he would have remembered himself entirely. Vampires always did. Watching the fight on his monitors had stripped his fear out of him. Going into Jerry’s den with Charley had buried it so far down that it wouldn’t – couldn’t – resurface.

His little brother had been on the line, threatened and angry all at once.

Peter’s own fears had seemed so small, in the face of that. Charley had been afraid and furious, ready and willing to destroy Jerry if it meant keeping himself and the girl he liked alive.

And now, with Jerry gone, Peter’s fears were still buried.

The resurgence of them was only because his mind was playing tricks on him, he thought as he entered his original home. An echo, a splash of trauma, the clearing out of the shadows and the cobwebs.

Whoever had cleaned up had done so fairly well.

The floor was stained a little, but not as much as it could have been. There was a scattering of holes in one wall, small and freckle-like, and he could recognize it as the blast of a shotgun. Jerry had taunted him about that, he remembered. He’d been drunk enough that his fear had been out of his control at the time, but he remembered that. “Hello mum,” he swallowed against the rising nerves – coming home again had been so hard. “Hello, dad.”

His fingers hurt from how tightly he was clutching the small metal shape in his pocket. Thirty days sober had been two months ago. Two months in which he had been living in a small cottage house he’d started renting, a couple of buses and a short walk away from his original home. The ninety-day chip in his pocket was a touchstone, of sorts. If he could hold onto his sobriety, maybe he could also hold onto his sanity in the face of something that should be impossible.

His sobriety, his sanity, his safety.

He mumbled those three things to himself as he walked through the house, avoiding the kitchen for now. He didn’t want to look at the place where his parents had died just yet. Peter held his head up high as he walked towards the stairs. They creaked under him but they held.

He remembered everything being bigger, once.

He’d probably just been smaller.

In a sort of a daze, he walked towards his bedroom, putting his hand on the door and pushing it open gently. Inside was the same as he remembered it – some of his clothing had been taken when he’d left, some of his toys, but the rest had been left behind. Fading and collecting dust like the relics they were. A life that had unceremoniously been halted, altered, made different. There was a mirror in the corner and he could almost see his mum standing behind him, smiling as she adjusted the bowtie he’d had to wear for a concert once. A friend of the family, a violinist, had gotten some renown and they had gone to see her perform.

His mum had let him wear the wrong sort of shoes with his suit, but the bowtie had been a necessity.

Peter smiled at the memory, brushing his fingers over the glass.

There, dangling from the top, was the bowtie itself. He traced a finger along the fabric, smiling at the memory, letting the nostalgia fill him. He sat down on the bed, brushing the blankets flat around him. He remembered choosing the print.

The house creaked around him and he glanced up.

The figure standing behind the door made him freeze, his heart seeming to stop mid-beat. He recognized that silhouette, the length of the man standing in front of him, the way he moved his hands. Whatever his name had been originally, Peter didn’t know, but he still recognized Jerry as he took several steps closer. “Peter,” his name flowed out of the vampire’s mouth – not a vampire, couldn’t possibly _be_ that vampire – and he jolted from his seated position, keeping himself at a distance from the being in front of him.

“I knew it was you,” he muttered, scrabbling for something, anything, any sort of weapon to keep himself alive. “_I knew it!”_

The being smirked, dark eyes flashing with something, and Peter picked up the nearest book and pitched it at his head, turning on his heel and dashing for the door. He came to a stop out in the hallway, grabbing for the umbrella stand and pulling out the first thing he touched. Armed with a cane, something that had once belonged to his grandfather, Peter stood there. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, waiting and watching the hallway, but it felt like a handful of seconds.

Or maybe it was an hour.

When nothing came charging out of the darkness towards him, Peter took a deep breath and started walking slowly back down the hall. He held the cane up, ready to lunge and attack if he needed to. His bedroom door was wide open, the way he had left it, and a book was laying on the floor.

There was no sign that anyone else had been in there.

His chest heaving as he suddenly started breathing again, Peter looked around the room with wide eyes. The window was closed and locked, the curtains undisturbed. The floor was coated in dust and only one set of footprints was there – his own. If someone had been there, they would have had to have floated in and been able to reset dust.

He hated this.

Hated the waiting and the nightmares – for all that he tried to convince himself he was okay, he was still standing there having a breakdown over the imagined sighting of a man he knew to be dead. Whatever was happening, Jerry was gone and some innocent man out there shared his face. He knew about the genetics involved, Charley had once mentioned that there was something like seven people sharing a face in the world. Doppelgangers, people who looked like each other because there were only so many combinations of genetics that could be made.

He had to be insane, then.

Jerry was gone and he hadn’t been here today. He’d been in this house, once, but that had been a couple of decades before.

Peter sank to the floor, covering his face with both hands.

He was just going insane.

He had to be.

Jerry was dead.

**Author's Note:**

> Is Peter going insane or is Jerry actually there? 
> 
> You decide! Tell me which one you think because there is definitely an actual answer to that question. It's going to be a while before I tell you, but I've got it worked out.
> 
> You'll see eventually :D.


End file.
